The SI Awakens
by Prince Pondincherry
Summary: A self-insert Jedi finds himself in The Force Awakens and has to deal with the standard problems of a self-insert: how to fix things without accidentally making everything worse. Not intended to be a Mary Sue, fix-fic, bashing, or shipping.
1. Arrival

The portal device exploded, and I could feel the rip in the universe. The Force violently stormed around the area, and for an instant I thought I could even feel a strange, Force-less gap, _outside_ the universe. Then the storm in the Force quieted back to its normal placid state, at a lower level than normal, even. With my senses stretched out to try to figure out what was going on, the sudden void was shocking, but it wasn't as if the Force was gone. There was just—less life, less _anything_ , outside my immediate presence.

All this was processed in a split-second in my mind, more in the realms of feelings and concepts than actual thoughts. The first thing I noticed with my physical senses took a bit longer to understand. I was in a poorly-lit room with flickering lights, black walls and floors, and white shapes just visible beyond the darkness. The room was rattling and shaking— _earthquake? No, this was more like airplane turbulence—_ and only my affinity for the Force let me maintain my balance. Indeed, the vague white-clad figures I could see around me were holding onto supports to stay standing. Looking more closely, I noticed they were wearing stormtrooper armor.

There weren't many explanations for why I would be in an airplane with a bunch of people in stormtrooper armor—a promotional event with the 501st Legion, maybe, but I'd never done that before, being too keen on staying out of the public eye whenever possible. But when combined with the shaking airplane ( _or dropship_ ), and the flickering lights, well…I'd seen this scene far too often recently not to know where I was, and I knew I'd be in trouble if the stormtroopers saw me.

Fortunately, only a few weeks ago, I had finally figured out the Force technique used by the Fallanassi to become invisible. I immersed myself in the current of the Force, letting it wash over me and direct light through me. It was just in time, too.

"What was that?"

"What?"

"I saw someone right over there. Not a stormtrooper." Just then, the lights stabilized and lit up the room completely. A stormtrooper was pointing right at me.

"There's nothing there. Focus on the mission." I breathed a quiet sigh of relief before thinking about what to do next.

 _Okay. It seems very likely that the malfunctioning portal device dropped me right at the beginning of_ The Force Awakens _. What am I going to do about it? I'll just have to survive and treat this world is real until the device's designer can build a new one and get me back. Okay, first thing that's going to happen will be these stormtroopers attacking the village. I really don't think I can stop this many stormtroopers, so I'll have to keep hiding. Although, Kylo Ren's kind of lame, I bet I could take him in a duel—but I have to remember, he was injured when he fought Rey, and even though he didn't complete his training, I've never had formal lightsaber training either. Anyway, there's no way I could take him and the stormtroopers all at once. So okay, I stay hidden, follow BB-8 until he meets Rey, and then…honestly, I should probably stay hidden, I don't want to mess things up too much and lose my foreknowledge. If I don't interfere, she'll meet up with Finn, and I can sneak on the Falcon with them and just stay there until they get to Maz's cantina. There's no real way I can stop them from blowing up the Hosian system, is there? Oh well, at least I should be able to save Han. I could probably stop Kylo Ren from capturing Rey in the jungle. And yeah, that shouldn't stop the Resistance from blowing up Starkiller Base at all._

 _So yeah, that's the plan. Stage 1: Stay invisible, follow BB-8. Hopefully we'll be far enough away that Kylo Ren can't sense me when he gets here._ I was trying to hide my Force presence, of course, but I wasn't 100% sure I could keep it up while also remaining invisible and running through the sand after BB-8.

Not much later, the dropship landed and the stormtroopers ran out, blasters firing. I could already feel the deaths from the battle in the Force as I followed after them. There was a sick feeling in my gut as I watched the outnumbered villagers get killed by the stormtroopers. _I'm a Jedi! I'm supposed to be able to stop this! But no, I need to stay hidden, I can save more people that way. I won't save anyone if I'm dead. But am I really sure I'd die if I fought back? Am I just refusing to help out of my fear of death? It's not 100% certain I'd die if I fought. Although I really shouldn't get cocky, I'm not used to fighting stormtroopers and dark siders. But still, all these people are fighting back against the First Order, for whatever reason, I don't even know why, but they have no chance of victory and they're still fighting. Is my life really more important than theirs? Well yes, probably, but I can't let them sacrifice themselves while I stand here and do nothing._

"Fuck!" I dropped the Force invisibility, pulled my lightsaber from my belt, ignited it, and shouted, "Hey, stormtroopers! Over here, I'm a Jedi! Fight me!" I had to draw them off from the villagers to give them a fighting chance, and this was the best way I could think of.

I felt a burst of violent intent from the nearest stormtrooper and turned to face him, but there was no incoming blaster fire for me to deflect. "Jedi!" he shouted, throwing his blaster to the ground and pulling the electrostaff-thingy from his belt, turning it on, and whirling it into a ready position for combat. _Crap, I forgot they had these. I thought maybe I'd stand a chance if I could kill enough stormtroopers before Kylo Ren got here, but if I have to fight them all in melee, there's no way I can do it. Oh well, I'll just have to go down fighting._ The stormtrooper charged towards me, swinging the staff in a heavy overhand swing that I had to brace myself to block. As a weapon with actual physical weight, the staff was a much slower weapon to wield than a lightsaber, but when it was swung quickly enough, it became really hard to stop. I had to block the staff close to the hilt of my lightsaber so he wouldn't get as much leverage, and even then he almost knocked the blade out of my hand.

But he didn't, and now that we were engaged in a close-up fight, the staff's weight became a disadvantage. We traded a few blows, and I could tell the stormtrooper was far more physically fit than me, but my Jedi reflexes and lighter blade won out before too long, and I cleaved the stormtrooper in two. Before I could catch my breath, three more stormtroopers attacked with their electrostaffs, but the quickness advantage my Jedi reflexes and lightsaber gave me meant that they weren't much harder to beat than one had been. Evidently, the stormtroopers realized this as well, as I was next faced with only a single stormtrooper once again. I complained, "Come on, are we really going to do this? Are you just going to come at me one at a time until I've killed you all?"

"We don't have to beat you, just stall you until Kylo Ren shows up. This way gets the least of my troops killed." It was Captain Phasma, her shiny silver armor reflecting the light of the fires that raged around the village. "And don't even think of running now that you know he's coming. We've got you surrounded."

I took stock of my options. I could either keep fighting until Kylo Ren got here, or…well, I probably wasn't killing them fast enough to make a difference to the villagers. Plus, assuming I hadn't screwed things up too much already, one of them was Finn, and I really didn't want to kill him. "Why don't we pass on the whole fighting thing? I'll just stand here until Kylo Ren shows up. He's almost here, anyway, and killing you guys doesn't get me anything." I gestured up in the air at Kylo Ren's descending dropship as I spoke.

"Agreed." Glancing around at the stormtroopers surrounding me, I realized that I was still distracting a reasonable number of stormtroopers, so hopefully that would help.


	2. The Duel

As I stood facing the landing First Order dropship, I tentatively reached out with the Force to sense my opponent. As soon as I contacted the churning maelstrom that was Kylo Ren, I pulled back in shock, both mentally and physically. I'd sensed evil before, but never a dark side user, never someone whose mind was churning like Kylo Ren's was. I steadied myself and blocked his own enquiring touch upon my mind. Then I stood with my brilliant green blade in a comfortable ready position.

"Hey!" I turned to see why the stormtrooper was shouting and saw the old guy who gave Poe the map walking towards me, awe on his face.

"A Jedi!" _Come to think of it, why did nobody grab him until Kylo Ren arrived? He must have left orders that he was not to be harmed._ The two nearest stormtroopers grabbed for the old man, but I infused my words with the Force and ordered,

"You will leave him alone."

"We will leave him alone," the stormtroopers replied in unison.

"Hey, no mind tricks!" ordered another stormtrooper. I started to raise my hands to placate him, but stopped when I realized that could easily be seen as a threat with an ignited lightsaber in one hand.

"Don't worry, I'm not trying anything funny. But I think Kylo Ren wants to speak to this man unharmed." The old man pulled away from me suddenly, feeling betrayed.

"What?"

I whispered back, "Don't worry, I'm just trying to get them to leave you alone. I'm on your side." I felt the betrayal drop away, and he moved to stand by me.

It wasn't long before the dropship landed and Kylo Ren dramatically stomped down the ramp, igniting his lightsaber with a flourish. "What have we here?" asked his deep, synthesized voice.

Captain Phasma, who had gone to greet him, saluted and replied, "He says he is a Jedi, sir. He just appeared; we think he was invisible. He has since killed four stormtroopers in melee combat."

"You are not a Jedi I recognize. Has Luke Skywalker been training more Jedi in his exile?"

"Uh, no, I've never met him." _Wait, why was I denying it? It would have given me the perfect backstory. Well, at least until someone meets Luke, but my chances of escaping here alive seem pretty slim. Oh well, too late now._

"Then who trained you?"

"Oh, uh, noone really, I mostly just figured it out myself by watching holoshows and reading about Jedi." _Why am I being so honest with him? I guess I just haven't thought of another explanation fast enough, and it doesn't hurt to tell the truth._

"Impossible!" _See, he doesn't believe me anyway._ "You must have had a teacher." _Rey sure didn't need one in the near future._ Then I clamped down on my mental shields. _I can't let him find out about her early_. "Take me to Luke Skywalker, and I will leave you alive to see your master."

"I'm telling you, I don't have any idea where he is." I wished I could let down my mental shields just enough to show him the sincerity of this statement, but though I thought myself rather talented with mental aspects of the Force, Kylo Ren seemed to be as well, and I had too many secrets to take any risks.

"I will get the information, whether you give it to me willingly or not." I tensed, preparing for an immediate attack, but Kylo Ren merely turned to Captain Phasma and asked, "Have you located the map?"

"My men have searched the village, and there's no sign of it."

Kylo Ren pointed to the old man next to me and stalked forward, demanding, "You! What did you do with the map?"

I waved my lightsaber around a bit. "Hello, Jedi here. You have to get through me first."

"As you wish. Your defeat will be swift." He twirled his lightsaber in a fancy flourish, while I raised mine in the standard Soresu opening stance.

"Bring it on." We moved to meet each other in a lightsaber duel, sending sparks flying as my pure green blade clashed with his writhing red blade and as the pure hum of my lightsaber seemed to clash with the angry growl of his. Fortunately, Kylo Ren was not the first person I had dueled with a lightsaber. However, my previous duels had been with someone who was on my side, so we had dueled more for completeness than from any expectation of actually having to face a hostile lightsaber-wielder. Still, although I was falling back constantly, I found that I was able to hold my own and not let Kylo Ren get the upper hand long enough to get any hits in. Ren tended to overextend on his attacks, but he was _fast_ , fast enough that I couldn't take advantage of any openings. If I wanted to beat him, I'd have to taunt him, make him lose his focus. But what to say?

"Come on, Ben, you're supposed to be better than this." _Wow, that was lame._ He just snarled and attacked harder. "Oh, wait, I meant you're supposed to be a good guy, I wasn't trying to taunt you or anything."

" **Shut up**." _Yeah, I really screwed up on that one._ I didn't say anything for a while, focusing on breathing, fighting, and thinking enough to make sure I didn't say anything stupid the second time.

"You know, your mother misses you. She still wants you to come home."

"You know **nothing** of my **mother**." _So I guess heartfelt entreaties only work from people you're already close to? Fair enough._ And his anger was just making his attacks stronger, not sloppier.

"Okay, shutting up now." We fought for minutes longer. We literally travelled in circles as I constantly backed up, but didn't want to leave the village. This struck me as comical enough that I almost laughed, but I couldn't spare the breath. We continued fighting, neither of us leaving an opening long enough for the other to take, until suddenly…he did. Kylo Ren overextended on a swing that I dodged when he thought I'd block, and I used the opening to bring my lightsaber up and cut him in two.

For a few seconds I just stood there, frozen in shock and sadness. It wasn't the first time I'd killed someone, not by a long shot, but it **was** the first time I'd killed someone whose name and life story I'd known. While Kylo Ren was evil, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him, and I'd just destroyed any chance for him to redeem himself that he might have had in the later movies. _Oh well, it was self-defense. There was nothing I could have done better. I just need to save other people to make up for it_. Then I remembered I was surrounded by stormtroopers. I quickly brought my lightsaber back up into position to guard against incoming blaster fire, but the stormtroopers still weren't acting. Stretching out my senses to find out why, I realized they were afraid of me. I smiled. It wasn't exactly pleasant knowing so many people feared me, but it did mean I might be able to get more people out of this situation alive, so I smiled.

"As you saw, I just killed Kylo Ren," I said, speaking up so my voice could be heard around the village. "I can kill all of you as well. I admit it will probably take a while, but you know I can do it." I wasn't actually that sure I could sustain myself for that many fights, but the Force was a powerful ally, so I might have been able to do it. "Or you could get back on your dropships and fly back to your Star Destroyer." I was sure they'd just come back with reinforcements, but that would make more time for any remaining villagers to evacuate.

The blaster fire had slowly died off as the stormtroopers stopped massacring villagers to watch our duel, so the only sound was the crackling of fires. After a moment, Captain Phasma stepped forward. "We'll be taking Kylo Ren's body and weapon."

"I don't care about his lightsaber, but his mother should get to bury him."

"That will be for high command to decide, but for now he is one of our fallen, and I'm not leaving without his body."

"What about all the dead stormtroopers?

"We will be back for them. I don't expect even you will stoop so low as to dishonor the dead before we return."

I nodded. "True enough." _Sorry Leia, I tried to get your son's body._

..

Captain Phasma gave a few orders, and four stormtroopers picked up Kylo Ren's lightsaber and the two pieces of his body and started to carry them back to his dropship. Another order, and they started filing back onto the dropships, keeping a wary eye on me as they did. I kept my lightsaber raised in a guard position as I thought. _Now let's see, what to do, what to do…Finn is FN2187, I think. This was supposed to be when he had his crisis of conscience. Did I ruin it? There_ _ **was**_ _still fighting between the stormtroopers and the villagers, but wasn't the biggest shock when his buddy died? There was that whole "bloody hand" thing, so if only I could see a stormtrooper with a bloody handprint on his chest I'd know it was him. But wait, wasn't the stormtrooper who died shot by Poe? Did Poe still do anything, or was he distracted by fighting me? If I just call out "FN2187," he should turn, and look at me, and then I'll know._ I started to say, "Wait, where is…" Then I cut myself off. _That would have been stupid! I almost got him in so much trouble! But isn't he just going to get into trouble anyway, and without Poe to bail him out?_ The stormtroopers nearest me had stopped when I said "Wait," and Captain Phasma turned around.

"What is it?"

"No, nothing, never mind." She stared at me, and I could sense her confusion and annoyance before she dismissed me and turned back to the dropships, waving her troops onwards. I continued to stand at guard while I thought out my next steps. _Okay, it's likely they're either going to go up, get more troops, and come back down, or maybe they'll send some TIE Bombers to flatten the place. This is why it sucks that there's only been the one movie, and I haven't read any of the Disney EU. I have no idea what Snoke will do to fight a Jedi now that the "Master of the Knights of Ren" is dead._ Suddenly, I heard blaster fire off to my left, on the outskirts of the village. "What's going on?" I demanded. "I told you to withdraw your troops!"

Captain Phasma turned back to face me and let out a small chuckle that sounded very strange coming through her mask. "Did you actually think we would just leave you here when we've been looking for that map for years?" _Shit! I assumed I won too early! But what's she planning?_ I stretched out with my Force senses and could feel the fear and determination of the one man exchanging fire with a group of stormtroopers to my left as he slowly retreated. _Poe Dameron, probably!_ Stretching out my senses further, I could feel more stormtroopers to my right, hiding behind the village huts and sand as they tried to get behind me, and even more stormtroopers were standing around a group of villagers behind me. _Shit, if they surround me and start firing, I probably wouldn't be able to block all their blaster bolts!_

I tugged on the old guy's arm, said, "Let's go," and started to pull him back and to my left, making sure to sense for any immediate danger with the Force. The troops closer to the dropship stopped leaving and turned to face me. Captain Phasma gave an order, and a bunch of them whipped out their shock batons and started advancing towards me. "Come on, faster!" I said, and started to jog, as the old man ran as fast as he could to keep up. "Need to distract them," I muttered. As we passed behind a hut and out of view of the stormtroopers chasing us, I reached into their minds and implanted an illusionary image of us running the other direction. Thankfully, they fell for it and ran the wrong way.

The old man and I stumbled up a hill. As soon as we got to the top, we could see Poe exchanging fire with the stormtroopers chasing him. I shoved the old man back down. "Stay here, and stay out of sight!" I whispered urgently. "No more wandering through the village with no concern for your own safety!" I heard a cry of pain from Poe on the other side of the hill, but I could fortunately still feel his life in the Force. "Gotta go!" I ran over the top of the hill, using the Force a little to nudge the four stormtroopers into paying attention to me rather than the injured Poe. Startled, they opened fire at me. Rather than take the time to try to deflect their blasts back at them, I simply batted them aside and charged until I could cut through the frantically backpedaling stormtroopers with my lightsaber. Then, I turned to check on Poe, making sure not to focus so much that I forgot to sense for threats around me again. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"I'll live," Poe said, groaning as he crouched down to pick up his blaster with his uninjured left arm. For a second I just stared in horrified fascination at the charred wound on his right arm. I'd never actually seen a blaster wound before, and it was suitably gory. Not to mention the smell. "Do you have a plan? My ship's wrecked, so I was just going to go down fighting, but if you know how to get out of here…"  
"I'm still working on it," I said sheepishly. Suddenly, I could feel a jolt of fear run through the old guy. Reaching out with the Force, I sensed that he had entered a hut to hide, but a squad of three stormtroopers was systematically checking every hut, and it wouldn't be long before they found him. There was also a large group of seven stormtroopers following the route that the stormtroopers who had been chasing Poe had taken, and they had almost reached us. I reached out to their minds and closed my eyes, concentrated on fooling them with another illusion. This was going to be hard; I usually didn't try to fool this many people at once. Still, I managed to successfully create an illusion of Poe and me running directly away from the village into the desert, sending them off on a wild goose chase. I let the illusion drop after "we" passed over a sand dune and out of sight. Then, I opened my eyes, turned to Poe, and said, "Let's go," running over the hill and back into the village. When we came upon the three stormtroopers, I deflected two quick blasts with my lightsaber and killed two of the stormtroopers. Poe fired a shot at the third, but his blaster wasn't meant to be used one-handed, particularly since it was his non-dominant arm, so he missed wildly. I deflected another blaster shot and beheaded the stormtrooper, but not before he reported our location on his comlink. "So much for getting them off our tail," I muttered to myself. I stepped to the open doorway of the hut the old guy was hiding in. "Come on, let's go!" I said.

Poe gave a sigh of relief as he saw the old guy stepping out of the hut unharmed. "You're alive!"  
"You are hurt," the man said, clucking disapprovingly.

"You should see the other guys."

"Um, excuse me, **I** took care of the other guys," I said with faux-indignation.

"Oh, my apologies," Poe said, playing along.

"Now shush, I need to focus so I can find us a way out." I reached out with the Force, pinpointing the location of the various stormtrooper patrols looking for us as well as the larger group surrounding the captured villagers. _How can I save the villagers from getting shot_ _ **and**_ _get us out of here? I_ _ **could**_ _turn the three of us invisible, and we could make a run for it, but that does nothing for the villagers. Oh well, I've got no better ideas, and I need to do it now._ "Hold still for a minute," I said. I shut off my lightsaber and clipped it to my belt. Then, I focused on the flow of the Force through the three of us as it surrounded us, united us, and bound us together with the galaxy. I gently allowed us to relax into the current of the Force until light just passed through us like we weren't there.

"Whoah! What did you do?" Poe exclaimed.

"Don't worry, we're all still here, just invisible."

"I had heard vague rumors of people using the Force for invisibility, but we always discounted them as legends," the old man said in a tone of wonder.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" I said, starting to head out of the village. It was a little disorienting not being able to see my feet as I walked, but I was centered in the Force, so I didn't so much as stumble.

"How are we supposed to follow you? You're invisible!" Poe said.

 _Oh. Right._ I sensed for his location in the Force and grabbed his left hand in my right. Then, I grabbed the old man's right hand in my left and started to lead them out of the village, taking the path that would avoid the most stormtroopers.

After we had gone a few meters, Poe whispered, "Can you use the Force to hide our footprints?" Looking behind us, I could see that our footprints were still clearly visible in the sand.

"Ah, no, telekinesis isn't exactly my thing," I replied sheepishly. "We'll just have to hope they don't notice them."

We continued on our way out of the village, stopping occasionally to let stormtroopers pass and avoid making footprints right in front of them. When we had traveled a few sandy hills' distance outside the village, we could hear the sound of one of the dropships taking off. I looked up and saw that it was hovering over the village. A voice emanated from a loudspeaker on the dropship: "Attention Jedi and co-conspirators! We have hostages! Reveal yourselves and prepare to surrender the map immediately or we will begin executing them!"

"Kriffing First Order!" Poe swore.

"Bastards were going to kill them all anyways," I said, then sighed. "But that doesn't mean we can just leave them to die."

"I'm all for rescuing people from the First Order, but I can't even shoot right now," Poe said. "I don't think there's anything we can do."

Back home in my own world, one of my friends would take a statement like that as a challenge, and he always seemed to pull it off. Unfortunately, I wasn't him. Even if I could manage to rescue the villagers, it would mean leaving Poe and the old guy out here on their own. I wouldn't be able to maintain the concentration necessary to keep them invisible, so they'd be out here with no cover. If the stormtroopers combing the desert didn't find them, the dropship probably would. But maybe there was a way…

"What if…I buried you?"

"Excuse me?" the old man asked.

"What if I bury you in this sand? I'll leave room for you to breathe, of course, but they shouldn't be able to find you if you're buried, right?"  
"And if they do find us? What will we do then? We'd be completely helpless!" the old man said.

"If you're set on trying to rescue those people, I'd rather just run for it," Poe said. "If you can distract them enough, we should be able to get away."

"Are you both up for this?" I asked. "I have to warn you, you will no longer be invisible once my concentration wavers, which will happen as soon as I start fighting, if not earlier."

"I already expected to die today," the old man said. "As long as the map to Luke Skywalker gets to the Resistance, I am willing to sacrifice my life."

"Hopefully you won't have to," I said. I let go of both of their hands and turned around to head back into the village.

"Wait," the old man said. "This galaxy needs the Jedi Order. The map to Luke Skywalker is important because he was the only remaining Jedi who could revive the old order—or so we thought."

I could see where he was going with this, and I cut him off before he could continue. "I may be a Jedi, but I'm no Luke Skywalker."

"That may be, but you **are** a Jedi. You have stood up to Kylo Ren and the First Order to protect innocents. Jedi like you are exactly what the galaxy needs. Do not foolishly get yourself killed."

"Don't worry, I'll be smart about it. I can always just turn myself invisible and run again if I have to. But I've got to go now, before they start executing them."

"May the Force be with you," the old man said.

"And also with you," I said, before heading back into the claws of the First Order.


End file.
